The report is based on 20 peer research interviews, a survey of staff and clients, a YouGov survey of the public and qualitative interviews with leading lights in the homelessness sector. When questioned about homelessness and the big society, the response was bleak.

Homeless people themselves were generally positive about many of the principles of the big society. They liked the idea of devolved decision making, and were positive about opportunities for volunteering. But currently just 14% of St Mungo's clients and staff think homeless people are included in society – the others feel they are looked down upon and unvalued as human beings.

Clients were also worried that the good intentions of the big society would be betrayed at local level, that transferring greater powers to communities would encourage them to be more exclusive. Worryingly, all of our clients thought the big society agenda would have a negative impact on them personally, and they drew a very clear link in their minds between this and the cuts in public spending.

This also reflected the views of sector leaders, who were concerned that the cuts (homeless services are typically reporting a 25% loss of funding) are curtailing the sector's ability to deliver the big society. Our report highlights the disproportionate burden of cuts being carried by homelessness services, because the client group is not a statutory priority. Homelessness agencies are being caught in a catch 22. There's rising demand for our services at the same time as our ability to provide them is hobbled. The real fear is that short term actions to balance the books will lead to long term increases in homelessness.

The prime minister David Cameron has stated: "Our alternative to big government is the big society. But we understand that the big society is not just going to spring to life on its own: we need strong and concerted government action to make it happen." We agree - but this strong and concerted government action has not yet materialised. We badly need to see it, even in chrysalis form.

We must not let public services off the hook. They must be required to either produce tailored programmes or resource the voluntary sector to do it on the state's behalf – but properly, and not through a series of glib and faddy initiatives that park the risk away from the state and seek only the easy-win outcomes. It is really the point that the Prime Minister makes: the state has to take the lead, and actually can be the catalyst for the big society. We need government to stand up for tolerance and inclusion, and to challenge, wherever it comes across it, the view that vulnerability is a lifestyle choice.

If not, there is a risk that homeless people will be even further excluded and, with homelessness rising, the consequences could take decades to repair.

So how can they, and we, do that? We're calling on the government to produce an "inclusion strategy" based on our report's inclusion checklist, which recommends 36 specific actions from trialling JobCentre Plus offices in homeless hostels to incentivising GPs and the new health and wellbeing boards to work with homeless and vulnerable people.

We're urging local authorities to espouse sensitive localism and encourage the public to continue to display generosity of spirit towards homeless people. That is the way we think that the heart can be put back into our communities.